To Forget Would Be An Awfully Big Adventure
by LCAAS
Summary: "After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter" – JM Barrie


**Title:To Forget Would be an Awfully Big Adventure  
Author**: bookworm  
**Rating:** G…shading a bit to PG perhaps  
**Warnings:** some darker theme raised this time, since Book!Peter is… well, he's nowhere nice as the Disney version.  
**Disclaimer**: I promise no characters were harmed in the writing of this fic  
**Summary: _"After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter" – JM Barrie_**

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_Listen, listen do you know the secret of the Island? See, look, here's a clue - in the daytime, with the lights on, it's all fun and games, but at night, with only the nightlight, isn't it a bit frightening? Just a little too real? Dreams are so very very close to Nightmares after all (why else do you think Sandy and Pitch fight so?).  
_  
Every Legend has a job to do. Do you know Peter's?

It is the first time that Youth and Winter have met, and the first time they have found an equal. Neverland is blasted with snow, not the ice of Peter's leaving, but Jack's playful mischief, and the Indians throw up their hands and the Pirates sulk, but the Lost Boys come tumbling through the snowdrifts with shouts of glee (sometimes, if Jack stops to think, he finds it odd that he doesn't remember how many of them there are, for normally he has no trouble remembering his believers. Then Peter will flash him a wicked grin, and suggest some new mischief, and Jack will forget to worry). The best fun to be had is with the Pirates - Hook spits nails as he wrings icicles from his beard, and Jack laughs and laughs and reminds him that he is to thank for ensuring that the Crocodile cannot reach him (the sea around the Jolly Roger is solid with ice, with an indignant ticking iceberg not more than a handsbreath from the ship). Hook swears eternal revenge and blames Peter for allowing Winter in, and Jack high fives his new best friend and thinks that Hook is ever so much more fun than Pitch.

(In Burgess, Jamie wonders why this winter is so mild, and he hopes Jack comes by soon)

Peter is delighted to find someone who can keep up with him, if somewhat envious of his ability to corral the Lost Boys (_he's_ supposed to be the leader! But Jack is so very good at games). He quickly forgets that they haven't known each other for long, when they get along so well (if he allows himself to think about it, he's happy that Jack will never get older, and so never leave him - but of course, he never allows himself to do so). The Island responds to its Heart, and Winter is welcomed to its embrace. For the first time, Peter doesn't have to go out seeking new playmates.  
_  
Did you ever wonder where the Pirates and the Indians come from? Peter dislikes Adults, for the most part - the Lost Boys are never allowed to stay after a certain age - Peter thins them out himself. Did you ever wonder what happens to them?_

Jack and Peter are so overjoyed to find a boon companion that neither stop to wonder at how long they have been playing. Time blurs so easily on the Island - Faerieland is like that, often. You've heard the stories, haven't you? How old Rip Van Winkle fell asleep watching a game of pins and woke centuries later, or Urashima Taro, who stayed three days in the halls of the Sea King and returned to find everyone he loved long dead of age. It's why the children are warned not to follow the Fair Folk in their revels, or you might end up like poor Thomas the Rhymer. And what is Neverland, after all, but one of the Islands of Faerie? The Fair Folk are Fair, tis true, and sometimes even Good, but this doesn't make them safe (and who raised Peter, after all?).

(In the Warren, Bunny tries to relax after a hard but productive Easter, but can't stop wondering where their wayward Guardian of Fun was this year - it isn't the same without him causing trouble.)

One of the best things about Neverland, as far as Jack is concerned, is that the Island is so tied to Peter that the warm weather isn't a bother, simply because Peter doesn't want it to be. It's the first time Jack has been able to be out and about in the lazy heat of summer without the penalties of Winter being in the wrong place and time, and he enjoys it for all that it's worth (it's the most Fun he's had in decades, better still for its novelty - he never stops to wonder what Season it is on the Mainland). The _worst_ part is Peter's forgetfulness - Jack himself can be careless, he knows, but with Peter it's almost as if he really doesn't care - he's so careless of the lives of the Pirates and Indians that they fight, and he forgets the Lost Boys as soon as they leave. He's getting better where Jack can see him, because Peter knows that it upsets him, but Jack still sometimes worries (he only worries sometimes because he's beginning to forget too). Neither boy registers the fact that Jack's hair is going ever so slightly brown at the roots.

(In the end the Guardians go to Sandy, the oldest of them all. The children have been uneasy lately, with none being able to clearly say why - it isn't a loss of belief, but a fear of the dark that grows. The places of pretend that should be a blessing are a little darker, lately, as if the fun is absent, and the dreams are more than a little wild. The Sandman frowns and looks to the stars, but they are as silent as ever. The Moon however, frets, and Sandy takes his cue from that.)

Jack will never say it aloud but the Sandman's arrival is almost like a slap to the face when he realises how long he's been gone. He cannot bring himself to be truly angry at Peter, who he knows doesn't realise the gravity of the situation, but after staring in horror at what Sandy is saying, Jack knows that after he sees to Winter and reassures Jamie, he is going to find someplace quiet and have a breakdown at how close he came to forgetting.

Long ago, Mrs Darling used to tell Wendy stories - it's how Wendy learnt the name of Peter Pan, you know. But if you asked her who he was, all she would be able to recall was that he was the boy who escorted the souls of the children who die, so that they won't be frightened. What Wendy figured out, you see, was that Peter forgets because he and the Lost Boys are to remain, or even become, innocent and heartless, and you can't do that if you remember all the sorrow and loss you've had. Childhood is selfish you see, it doesn't understand the pain and joy of another yet - a child can be happy so long as they are safe and their needs met, but concern for others is only just beginning to be taught. A child loves so easily, but that love is a careless one, easily forgotten. And Wendy, Wendy _loved_ Peter - and that love is the very beginning of adulthood - that moment when you begin to understand what it means to put another's happiness above your own, even if it means your own pain; when you learn what it means to fear the loss of someone, but accept that the reward is worth the risk. Loving him, she understood - for him to love her in return, especially to love her the way she was beginning to want, he would have to grow up - and she could never ask that of him. So she let him go. When the Lost Boys are old enough, they leave (or Peter makes them) and while those who have something of the child in them still may linger on the Island, most cross that final doorway and never return. And remember, Jack... Jack _died_ to become Jack Frost.

Peter is upset at Jack's leaving, and the Island reflects his mood, but not even the Pan will cross the Sandman. Jack however, looks at Peter and sees a child who is losing yet another playmate and cannot bring himself to be angry (and who is Jack, after all, but a Guardian of Childhood?). Peter, Jack knows, is likely to forget, if left alone. But Jack has been alone for 300 years, and he'll not let another go down that road, even if Peter has all the playmates he could want (and he genuinely _likes_ Peter, the first to keep up with him in centuries). He promises to return and Sandy uneasily agrees to allow it, but only if Jack warns him beforehand so he can fetch him if needful. In the meantime, Jack reminds Peter that they can still meet and play with the children on the mainland, and Peter begrudgingly accepts this compromise, only brightening at the thought of more playmates. Winter leaves then, and Summer returns to the Island, but now the inhabitants know that he will return. Without Jack, Peter is quickly too restless to stay, and before long Neverland sinks back into its sleep, as its Heart leaves to do his job. As Neverland slumbers this time, perhaps the stars gleam a little brighter, and the Wind's song is ever so slightly more cheerful. Things have changed, on the Island.

There are two boys who never grow up - Youth, and Winter. Both, in their own ways, have been alone for a long time. But now they've found each other.

"_Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest." – JM Barrie_.

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**AN:** I wanted to look at some of the differences between Jack and Peter this time, particularly the fact that book!Peter is… not a very nice character. Oh, he's loveable, and sweet when he wants to be, but also somewhat terrifying – JM Barrie himself said that children are _"the most heartless things in the world… but so attractive_", and Peter, of course, even moreso than Jack, is very much the Immortal Child. In the book he "thins out" the Lost Boys when they get too old, the way kids will switch friends at the drop of a hat on the playground (although the implications are much darker), and he'll switch sides in fights with the pirates just because he's bored, he treats everything as a game, and of course, he has the memory of a goldfish – all of which are true of very young children. Jack, of course, although he certainly treats most of life as a game (in his case of course, it's more a coping mechanism), is both older, _and_ has had the responsibility of being the older sibling – he's learnt to care for others, which Peter hasn't. Jack would fall into that category of "loving you again" without being the same, but Peter can remain "gay and innocence and _heartless"_, _because he forgets (_and there's the issue of Jack and forgetting…yeeeeeah I skipped over that this time_)_. I've always felt that it was some aspect of the Island which caused that, as it is supposed to be one part Dream and one part Faerieland, and such places are malleable in time and space at the best of times – the longer you stay, the harder it gets to remember. And that thing about Peter escorting souls is canon, yep.


End file.
